Gun laws with a poison pill -- your thoughts?

First, let me say that I'm not advocating the idea presented here, but rather just throwing it out for the sake of discussion/debate.

With all the talk about 'common sense' gun laws to 'promote safety' and 'think of the children', I was thinking about the idea of 'public safety' in the much broader context. If the anti-gunners are truly interested in safety, why don't we take a more comprehensive view -- and use data. For starters, if they're all genuinely interested in public safety, how about more regulations on alcohol? I don't have the stats handy, but I suspect that more innocent people (including children) are killed by drunk drivers than by guns.

Along these lines, we often hear: "no one *needs* to have a such-and-so type of weapon", therefore we should outlaw them. With that line of thinking, how about banning alcohol production and sale above a certain limit (say beyond 80 proof)? After all, who needs something as strong as Everclear or Wild Turkey 101 proof? Additionally, why not have NICS checks for all alcohol purchases and prohibit all criminals (or just violent criminals, or DWI convictions) from any alcohol purchase at all?

The whole idea here would be to see just how genuine their motives are (or aren't). Wonder how Feinstein would feel about 'turn them all in' approach that included wine from Napa and Sonoma.

Of course there is some percentage of the population who doesn't drink any alcohol and may say 'fine by me', but overall I wonder if a wider swath of our citizens would be more sympathetic to individual rights when they start hitting closer to the ones that they might cherish.

Nice thoughts, but there truly is no ounce of care for citizens well being in these people that come up with these bills. It's about 1 thing, CONTROL. Ok, maybe 2 CONTROL and POWER. Anyone with a rational mind can see that things like drugs, alcohol, hate, racism, ect are the "cause" of tragic/violent actions. Guns do not fall into the "cause" category. They along with many other household items fall into the "effect" category. To try to stop something bad from happening you must stop the "cause" not the "effect". In this case they go after the guns because they understand that without a powerful effect (armed citizens) that their subjects can't push back no matter how big the cause. The cause and effect of an unarmed populace is no threat to an overbearing tyrranical government.

OP; last week, one of our esteemed university professors at SUNY Buffalo proposed the same thing (he may have been steamed over the SAFE Act). It does have merit to have extreme restrictions (Not Prohibition, mind you. That was tried once before. Did not work very well.) on alcohol to the point where drunk driving becomes quite difficult.

After all, it's for the children. Propose it to your local politicritter and see how it flies. Especially if you are in a State where firearms legislation is becoming stupid ignorant.

I love it when the pro-gun crowd turns the anti-gun crowd's logic against them. For example, when the Bill of Rights were written only muskets existed. Fine, only land owning white men can vote, slavery is still in existence, 1A only does not apply to radio, tv, internet....

Well let's take this one further~ we should make it mandatory that everyone has to have a mental health screening before they are permitted to vote. After all, no sane person would vote for a candidate that was hell-bent on taking away their God-given rights and freedoms, would they? And any person who is so irrational and mentally deficient that they would support such self-immolation and subordination and submit everyone else to the status of being subjects rather than citizens clearly can be considered a threat to the rest of society, so those dangerous persons should be banned from having a vote~

It could be argued that we neeeed to do this to protect our children. After all a freedom lost can never be recovered~ so if this can save just one right...

The OP's idea (which, in his defense, he says he does not advocate) assumes the following is true...

If the anti-gunners are truly interested in safety,

Click to expand...

Now, the real truth:

Gun control does not have anything to do with "public safety" or "the sake of the children". It has nothing to do with reducing crime. It's not even about guns.

They know it, and most of us do as well.

Gun control is about the fear the government holds of the power of the people. Every law passed along the way has been a step toward the reduction-in-force (RIF) of the general public, and likely toward the total disarmament of the populace as a whole. None has had any affect that has resulted in a reduction in violent crime, improved safety "for the children", or an improvement in public safety as a whole.

Gun control is about control, about power. The citizenry holds it; the government wants it.

Prohibition, yes...now there is an idea who's time has come!
You can make a list a mile long, but it doesn't work and it never has; on anything we prohibit.
It does have a fantastic history of spreading organized crime, violence and graft.

A: We pass your legislation, but with an amendment. If, after the legislation is signed into law, there is another school shooting or another whacko gets loose in a workplace, restaurant, mall, etc., the laws are deemed to have been ineffective, are automatically repealed and may not be presented in subsequent sessions of Congress. Any persons prosecuted under these laws are automatically pardoned with full restoration of their civil rights.

B. If they can't accept those conditions, they acknowledge that their proposed laws will not produce the desired effect, making them unnecessary and they agree to withdraw their proposed legislation in order to free up Congress' valuable time to work on more important legislation.

As to the "muskets" argument: If the Second Amendment referred only to the firearms available at the time the Bill of Rights was composed, then freedom of the press must refer only to Gutenburg-style screw-type presses that could print one side of one sheet per operation and were totally human-powered. By the same token, freedom of speech must refer only to human speech not amplified or broadcast by means other than those available in the late 18th Century. I think that pretty much limits free speech to cone-type megaphones or yelling.

TexasBill, I like that idea! The only thing is, as we've now seen- that after the next shooting they would completely agree it didn't work.... which to them would mean it wasn't restrictive enough and try for ever more restrictions!

Along these lines, we often hear: "no one *needs* to have a such-and-so type of weapon", therefore we should outlaw them. With that line of thinking, how about banning alcohol production and sale above a certain limit (say beyond 80 proof)? After all, who needs something as strong as Everclear or Wild Turkey 101 proof? Additionally, why not have NICS checks for all alcohol purchases and prohibit all criminals (or just violent criminals, or DWI convictions) from any alcohol purchase at all?

Click to expand...

I know this was in jest, but is it bad that I look at that and go "you know, that's not a bad idea. - NICS check to buy liquor." Having seen first hand multiple times the bad effects of ethanol and operating a motor vehicle on the driver and innocent by-standards, I think its understandable where I am coming from. Not saying we should, but it does have a certain resonance to me...

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